(Motorsport-Total.com) – Seven-time Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton won the 2026 Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona-Catalunya and subsequently dominated the reader ratings of Motorsport-Total.com: With an average rating of 1.12, Hamilton remained almost a full point ahead of his closest rival Lando Norris (2.10).
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Formula 1 expert Marc Surer, as one of three evaluation pillars alongside readers and editorial staff, commented: “Even if the strategy helped – that was a brilliant performance!” Hamilton received a clear 1 from Surer and the editorial team, and an average of 1.36 points from the approximately 700 participating readers.
Nico Hülkenberg remained without points in the actual race due to his retirement, but his driving performance earned him a top 10 spot in the reader ratings. Surer particularly praised the Audi driver’s “strong qualification” and said: “In the Grand Prix, everything went wrong due to strategy and bad luck.” Overall, Hülkenberg was rated sixth with 2.62 points.
Charles Leclerc is penalized
This time, Hamilton’s Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc was at the bottom with 4.60 points. While readers showed mercy with an average rating of 3.8, Surer and the editorial team penalized Leclerc with a grade of 5 each after his qualifying crash and weak race pace – especially compared to Hamilton. Surer said: “Now he has the right brakes, but he still throws the car away.”
Incidentally, the expert gave another 5 to Fernando Alonso, who for the first time since 2024 was behind teammate Lance Stroll in qualifying. Surer: “Nothing went right at his home race.”
In the overall reader standings, Hamilton’s victory led to a change at the top of the table: Hamilton now leads ahead of Kimi Antonelli, who was only rated fourth in Barcelona. George Russell follows in third place ahead of Max Verstappen and Norris. Hülkenberg is in 17th place.
Who really shone in Barcelona – and who didn’t?
How the editorial team discussed the driver ratings after the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona-Catalunya will be a topic on (new!) Tuesday evening from 8:30 PM in the call-in show “Live bei Scheuren” on the Formel1.de Twitch channel. Host Kevin Scheuren invites users to join him personally via Zoom to chat about the Barcelona Grand Prix and Formula 1.
Click through: How Surer rates the 22 drivers!
How Marc Surer rates the other drivers can be read in detail in an extended photo gallery. In this photo gallery, both the Formula 1 expert and the editorial team explain their individual ratings for each of the 22 drivers. So that users can hopefully understand even better from now on how the driver ratings came about.
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Barcelona: The driver ratings from Marc Surer and the editorial team
By the way: Many users wish for more transparency from the editorial team when assigning grades. That’s why we decided to publish the individual grades of our editors in a separate table. For the overall editorial grade, which constitutes pillar 3 of the system, the editorial team agrees on a common full grade in a conference.
In this conference, which has become a fixed agenda item for us every Monday morning after Formula 1, things sometimes get heated when different opinions clash. And we collect arguments that speak for or against a better or worse grade.
How we assign our grades
The idea behind our grading is to evaluate performances over a weekend, and especially in the race, with grades (1 = Very good, 6 = Insufficient). External influences that drivers cannot control themselves should be excluded. And so that not only the editorial team evaluates subjectively, as is the case with football magazines, we have created a total of three equal pillars with the readers and the expert.
And this is how we calculate:
From the average rating of Motorsport-Total.com users, the rating by expert Marc Surer, and the rating by our editorial team, we determine the average. This average value results in our driver ranking. We only display one decimal place, but for the calculation, we use all decimal places. These partially invisible decimal places determine the order of the ranking of two drivers in the event of a supposed tie in ratings.
The grades of the individual editors:
We are often asked how our editorial grades are determined. All editors of our Formula 1 team first submit their grades individually. In an editorial conference the morning after the Grand Prix, we then discuss them and agree on common editorial grades, which usually (but not always) reflect the average of the individual editors’ grades. Discussions can sometimes get heated when determining the editorial grades. The goal is to agree on common driver grades that every editor can accept.
Award for Driver of the Year:
Based on the overall grades of a race weekend, we award points for the 2026 annual standings. Analogous to the points system in the real Formula 1 World Championship, the winner receives 25 points, the second 18, the third 15 – down to one point for 10th place. There is no bonus point for the fastest lap. After the end of the season, the driver with the most points will be awarded the Motorsport-Total.com Award for Driver of the Year 2026.
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